PRAGUE — Twenty-one years after one of Václav Havel's most famous speeches, many fear the Czech Republic is still in an "ugly mood."

In December 1997, the then-president told a joint session of the Czech parliament that the nation was on the wrong track. Just eight years after the Velvet Revolution, the country was going through a very rough patch. The governing coalition had collapsed, scandals were rife and a right-wing extremist party was whipping up hatred against minorities.

“Many people,” he said, “are disconcerted, disappointed, or even disgusted by the general state of society in this country. Many people believe that, democracy or no democracy, the people in power are again people who cannot be trusted and who are more concerned about helping themselves than about the greater good.”

In the week that marks the seventh anniversary of Havel’s death, the speech still strikes a chord with many Czechs.

That’s not to say Havel, the dissident playwright who shepherded the country from communism to democracy, is universally admired. Even when he gave that speech, he was already a divisive figure and the object of scorn not only from right-wing extremists, but from many mainstream politicians and ordinary Czechs.

"We were all idealistic back then. But today strength is important. So if you are looking for signs of Havel’s moral legacy in the country right now, I would say that it’s a difficult task” — Former Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra

But to Havel’s admirers, parts of that 1997 address — which became known as the “ugly mood speech” — feel like an apt description of the state of the Czech nation today.

President Miloš Zeman has been criticized both at home and abroad for virulent comments against minorities and Muslims. And, as Jan Zahradil, a Czech conservative member of the European Parliament, put it: “Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution we have a prime minister [Andrej Babiš] who was a Communist Party member and a secret police informer.”

Babiš has denied knowingly collaborating with the secret police — though the European Court of Human Rights last month rejected an appeal he filed to be removed from the records as a communist-era informant.

Babiš, one of the country’s richest men, has also been charged with EU subsidy fraud — another accusation he has denied.

"I’m very critical of Zeman, and even more of Babiš, but they cannot destroy the democracy Havel helped create” — Former Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra

Against that backdrop, it’s easy to wonder whether anything remains of Havel’s moral idealism in the country he led for the first 13 years after its rebirth — and whether the “ugly mood speech” is more fitting than ever.

“I quote from that speech regularly these days,” said Michael Žantovský, executive director of the Václav Havel Library.

Žantovský was a lifelong friend of Havel’s, his first presidential spokesman and later his ambassador to the U.S. He wrote a well-regarded biography of Havel, who died on December 18, 2011, at the age of 75.

Žantovský admitted that Havel’s moral thinking is not prevalent among current Czech politicians. “But among the general population, in spite of what you sometimes hear or see on social media, Havel’s legacy is well and is deeply rooted,” he said.

Housed in a modest two-story building not far from the café in which Havel and fellow artists and dissidents often met, the library holds more than 200 debates, discussions and readings a year. “And we have a full house every night,” Žantovský said. “They are mostly young people, between 20 and 30 years of age.”

The library also takes to the road, to small and large towns across the country, speaking to high schools and colleges, libraries and culture clubs. “And everywhere we meet with the same reception from people who realize that the sense of moral values — of feeling co-responsible for the state of the world around you, of how people treat each other — is as strong as ever,” Žantovský said.

The library also has a popular online project in which YouTubers, actors and other performers read from Havel’s works. According to some social media data, Žantovský said, the Havel library is the most cited NGO in the Czech Republic.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Václav Havel to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC for a meeting to include discussions on a NATO summit September 18, 2002. | Tim Sloan/AFP via Getty Images

“Havel is here to stay,” he declared. “And next year we will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the revolution and it will be another occasion to showcase him.”

Pragmatic Prague

Not everyone sees things quite that way. Havel’s idealism may just be out of place in today’s world of realpolitik, according to former Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra, who served as the late president’s first foreign policy adviser.

“Just like in economy, there are cycles also in values,” said Vondra, a former dissident with Havel who, like him, was jailed for his activities.

“We were all idealistic back then. But today strength is important. So if you are looking for signs of Havel’s moral legacy in the country right now, I would say that it’s a difficult task.”

Vondra said he doubts if Havel would be elected president by popular vote today, because of his high moral standards.

“He raised the ethical bar too high for the average citizen. But, then, if you start with a lower bar, you will get lower results,” he mused.

Zahradil believes that Havel’s insistence on high moral standards alienated many Czechs during his presidency.

“There were 1.5 million people who were Communist Party members, many of them without believing in the ideology. Those people were fed up by what they considered the morally superior posturing of Havel,” he said.

This aversion to Havel’s ethical stance also included some mainstream politicians — he was reelected president in 1997 with only 55 percent of the parliament’s vote.

The far-right politician Jan Vik no doubt voiced what many Czechs came to believe when he said, in 1993, “The [Prague] Castle is still haunted by the specter of greasy and weird-looking advisers and their chancellor, a typical example of patriotic nobility, proudly claiming its estates and our historical monuments. It is still haunted by the figure of the ruler in a jester’s hat with bells, a megalomaniac and an artist with a chip on his shoulder.”

But Havel’s legacy is not just a question of morality, Vondra said. Widely considered the father of the modern Czech state, Havel and his collaborators created the foundations of today’s Czech democracy.

“I’m very critical of Zeman, and even more of Babiš, but they cannot destroy the democracy Havel helped create,” Vondra said. “And he anchored the country in the West. Even Zeman, with his appetite for strongmen and doing business with Russia and China, is not able to destroy our Western anchor. Despite all the problems and the politicians you cannot be proud of, the country is in relatively good shape. That’s the legacy.”

But if you look carefully, especially in Prague, signs of Havel’s lingering moral spirit can still be found. On the shop window of his small natural foods store not far from the city center, 40-year-old Miloslav Picmaus displays a large poster showing a smiling Havel under one of his most famous statements: “Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.”

Picmaus said he wanted to display the poster prominently because of his dismay over the October 2017 parliamentary election, won by Babiš. He said that many people have reacted negatively to it, coming into the store to complain or even spitting on the window.

“But a lot more people give us the thumbs-up from the sidewalk and many have asked for copies,” he said. “Havel’s ideas are still very important, especially these days.”

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glasspix 1

Havel is still much revered among the Czechs, he had acted admirably during the decades of Communist oppression and his words, action and even sacrifice will remain a moral corner-stone for his country just like the ones left by Comenius, John Hus or Masaryk. However, he was one of those few unblemished who were incapable of grasping the new geo-political reality presented by mass-migration and its powerful globalist sponsors. When boats are landing on your shores packed with opportunistic colonists who know and care nothing about Comenius or Hus, then you want someone ruthless like Babis protecting your sovereignty, not a Saint Frances like Havel.

Posted on 12/19/18 | 7:51 AM CET

r s

@glasspix 1

Hi from Prague, err…no, Havel is NOT still much revered among the Czechs.
And no, “no boats with refugees are landing on [our] shores”. Leaving aside that Czechia has no seashores, very few refugees want to live there. As in many other countries refugees are just a threat to gain political points from xenophobic population. Czechia’s stance is this this: we expect money from the EU but ask for no solidarity (or responsibility) whatsoever (and not only in the case of refugees).
At the moment Czechs have the highest living standard they ever had, the lowest unemployment in the EU, one of the lowest poverty rate in the EU and they elected communists, neo-fascists and populists in the general election last year. God knows whom they will vote for in hard times.
There is very interesting point in Havel’s legacy. The Visegrad group was his idea – he was afraid the united Germany might become only too powerful so he was seeking for a balance of powers. Paradoxically this balance of powers ended in a situation he would hate. The V4 is supporting as a whole its most illiberal members Poland and Hungary, where the freedom, which was so important for him – freedom of speech is being violated.

Posted on 12/19/18 | 10:40 AM CET

Franz Trenck

@ rd

Hi, also from Prague, sorry to burst your bubble but most of Czechs learned the hard way that preemptive measures are better that reactive ones.

Maybe Czechia should wait until it’s infested with no-go zones, migrant gangs, terrorist cells etc. and saddled with few hundred thousand of imported diversity that countributes little and takes a lot.

Brilliant idea, are you employed by EU per chance?

Posted on 12/19/18 | 12:43 PM CET

Petr Nový

The current situation in the Czech R. is judged differently by “the street” and “the elite”.

The street (i.e. ordinary citizens) are happy because the economic situation is currently better than ever after the fall of communism – unemployment figures are the lowest in EU, the salaries/wages have finally increased (though not that much as in some other new EU member states) and the Babiš’s government has good PR and thus managed to persuade ordinary people to be confident about results of its and their own future. Moreover refusing immigration from the troubled countries preserve the country secure, stable and predictable for its citizens as well as business. And government is still relatively liberal in preservers individual freedoms…. And when these people see the restless word, including violent on the streets of EU countries and hunger strikes, the general mood is “we can’t imagine any better place to live”.

The elite, on the other hand, are concerned by policies of the countries leading representatives: president Zeman is surrounded by people who have strong economic interest in Russia and China and actually fight for interest of these two countries more than for interests of their own country. They have heavy support in the form of the Russian embassy (biggest embassy of any country in Prague) and massive immigration from post-Soviet sphere to the Czech R. This everything changes moods among ordinary citizens (especially the old pensioners who have time to spend their days watching all the fake-new media) from pro-Western to pro-Russian/pro-Chinese.

They elite is also concerned with modus operandi of the prime minister Babiš (a Slovak billionaire who was already employed in the communist foreign-trade department securing deals with Africa) and who still preserves many practices from that time and from times of his business (centralized decision making, preference of big corporations to SMEs, strong bureaucratic control over lives of citizens, efficient PR, etc.), and of course his possible conflict of interests in the form of ownership of the biggest agricultural corporations in the country (despite who put it into a trust for the time of his engagement in top political roles).

I, thus, guess that Havel would indeed be sad about who posses the top level political roles in the Czech R. now. However, he was also and optimist and surely would also have reasons to be optimistic: young people from the Generations Y and Z are politically active, with generally pro-Western stance. The third biggest party in the country is the forward-thinking Pirate Party that promotes political and economic transparency and freedoms; while the far-right scene is almost non-existen (the skinhead movement active in 1990th has naturally fallen apart after its members grown up and the current young generation does not consider it attractive), while far-right Workers Party support does not exceed 1% and far-left communist party support has shrunk in recent elections from around 13% to about 7%. So Havel could be content that the political maturity of the Czech voters is better than in many Western countries!

Posted on 12/19/18 | 12:47 PM CET

Maurizio Bertini

@ Franz Trenck
No-go zones like Saxony, where I’m very careful not to speak my Italian mother-tongue when I’m not there as an interpreter?
Hundred thousands of imported diversity would still be less than 10% of the present population of the Czech Republic.
Over 10% of the population in Germany is foreign-born and they give a relevant contribution to the German GDP. Me too, BTW, you f* racist.

Posted on 12/19/18 | 5:13 PM CET

aussie 43

“Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.”
Havel wasn’t the first person to preach this. And he hasn’t managed to make it a reality.
He anchored the country firmly in the western system. System driven by profit, where big fish eat small fish.
As they say now in the country of my birth and (socialist) upbringing –
Under socialism, people stole paper and pens. In this new era, smart people steal the factories that make paper and pens.
That is the era Havel ushered. Beware of dissidents!

Posted on 12/22/18 | 6:01 AM CET

aussie 43

@Maurizio Bertini
The Czechs were never colonisers, and thus never drew any benefits from the African countries immigrants are coming to Europe from.
Czech involvement in NATO operations was also only a token one, so they do not feel responsibility for refugees from the Middle East.
The problem is that refugees would be used to do poorly paid jobs, they would live in dilapidated housing, and would join the Roma people as a hated minority. Their youths would get militant, etc etc.
They are right to resist.

Posted on 12/22/18 | 6:16 AM CET

Joanna Motheroff-Angels

@ r s
“The V4 is supporting as a whole its most illiberal members Poland and Hungary, where the freedom, which was so important for him – freedom of speech is being violated.”

I can assure you that here in Poland we don’t have problems with the freedom of speech. And this is unfair and most of all untrue to call Poland illiberal country.